So far, it does seem that a chemo cycle with paclitaxel is less taxing on my body than the AC cycles. To help prevent a serious allergic reaction to paclitaxel, I took dexamethasone 12 hours and 6 hours before treatment. If you're going to have a serious allergic reaction, it is usually during the first or second treatment, and will happen within the first 30 minutes. I didn't have any issues after the first treatment, so hopefully there won't be any allergy issues going forward. Dexamethasone did made it harder to sleep for the first couple nights, and then muscle aches made it hard to do much (including sleep) for several days after chemo. Tylenol didn't help much, but heating pads provided some relief and doing some walking also seemed to help. I also developed tingling in my feet that has gotten better over this cycle but hasn't fully gone away. The chemo nurse also said that paclitaxel can be more irritating to the local vein when administered by IV, so there a...

The last round of chemo with AC (doxorubicin and cyclophosphamide) was hard, even with the dosage reduced by 10%. It was a tiring chemo week, and even this past recovery week has required more rest than in previous cycles. Nausea also was stronger than in previous cycles. I had to resort to Ensure beverages for a couple of days and have been eating a mostly vegetarian diet since then, since the smell of meat has been one of the most most off-putting food smells since I started chemo. My partner suggested trying tuna today, and a tuna melt was acceptable to my stomach. Chinese dumplings and Nepali momos have been ok too. When I was pregnant with our son, I ate a lot more peanut butter than usual. During chemo, my default snack is guacamole and crackers. Chips, my junk food weakness, don't taste good these days - so guac and crackers are as close as I can get. To be clear, that image is purely stock image filler - I just buy pre-made guac from the grocery store. Yes, it's easy to...